Mentor-Inspire-Create-Socialise-Explore. The new MISCE community aims to foster an inclusive digital society through skills developments and community building.

What is the purpose of MISCE?

MICSE is a non-profit association advocating inclusive digital society and gender balanced work environment. We foster a mixed community for exchange of ideas and knowledge sharing.

We seek to promote diversity at the workplace and bridge the digital skills gap through competence training’s open to everyone. In addition, we provide an ecosystem for talent development and run a professional advancement and mentoring program.

Why did you set up this group?

Our aim is to build a supportive community to encourage individuals in realising and expanding their potential. Building on the experience some of our founders had as part of Geek Girls Carrots, a global organisation, we founded MICSE to respond better to the specific needs of professional people in Luxembourg. Workplaces are changing dramatically, transferable skills and digital savviness are indispensable, and career transitions are commonplace, leaving the “gold-watch” work attitude in the past. So people need to constantly broaden their horizon and develop their professional skills. Our monthly meetups provide a great opportunity to explore different topics, learn, network, make the right contacts and maybe find a mentor in a particular field. We are especially passionate about bringing more women in ICT and supporting them along their paths.

You’re organizing an event related to Cybersecurity for Women, why did you chose that topic?

We are launching a Cybersecurity mentoring program for women to help them start or change careers into the cybersecurity field. The mentoring program involves an intense training bootcamp, which will provide a solid introduction to the main domains of Cybersecurity as well as exposure to the relevant technical vocabulary and industry practices. After the bootcamp, our aim is to integrate the program participants into cybersecurity teams of our partner companies based in Luxembourg. Hence, the program will give its participants both theoretical and practical expertise necessary to succeed in the field. Throughout the program, participants will be assigned a mentor, an experienced cybersecurity professional, who will guide them and support them during the duration of the program.

Our meetups on Cybersecurity for Women serve as an environment to learn more about the Cybersecurity mentoring program for women and to also better understand the needs of women in Luxembourg in the context of cybersecurity. During these meetups we will discuss details of the program, relevant topics to cybersecurity and what it takes to get an entry level job in cybersecurity.

What do you expect with that group?

The monthly/bi-monthly meetups are open for anyone curious about the program or cybersecurity more broadly, to attend. We aim at building a community of women interested in the field. Recent cyber attacks have highlighted the need for additional understanding and adoption of security best practices. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link; weak passwords, phishing and other threats are all areas that require focus and as a society we still seem to underestimate the risks. Security is no longer a tech domain but concerns everybody both in their professional and private lives. The discussions will raise overall awareness of important security topics ranging from keeping your data safe and protecting privacy to legal implications of dealing with a security breach, with the aim of contributing to an overall safer online environment for all.